What the heck were Giants thinking on fake field goal play against Browns? Here’s their explanation

The Giants called a play in the first quarter against the Browns that confused a lot of people.

It didn’t confuse the Browns. So it failed.

Here’s what happened early in the Giants’ 20-7 loss on Sunday night:

On fourth down from the Browns’ 8-yard-line, the Giants brought out their field goal unit. Pre-snap, the Giants realigned in a strange way, with punter Riley Dixon 10 yards behind the snapper positioned as a quarterback. Kicker Graham Gano was split out wide right with tight end Levine Toilolo. Three linemen were split out wide to the left.

Dixon — a former high school quarterback that threw a touchdown pass in college — snapped the ball and promptly threw it into heavy coverage. The pass was intended for Nick Gates, the Giants’ 306-pound center. It was overthrown.

The Giants could’ve taken a 3-0 lead with a field goal — or a 7-0 lead if they’d have run a more traditional offensive play and succeeded. Instead, they went for trickeration. And it failed.

These sort of decisions — fourth down and/or special teams plays — are typically made (or at least approved by) the head coach.

So what was Joe Judge thinking?

“Just real simple: I thought it was a well-designed fake,” Judge said. “We’ve executed and practiced that consistently throughout the year. I thought the timing was right. You look to go ahead and just roll the dice sometimes and take a chance. You hit that thing, you’re the guru. You don’t hit that thing, everyone wants to second-guess your decision. I understand that completely. But when the coaches come up with a good scheme and we think it’s got a chance to be successful, we’re going to go ahead and play that.”

It’s up for debate whether it was a good decision to take the Giants’ quarterback and primary weapons off the field, though. Or at least for not running a more traditional fake field goal that might’ve actually caught the Browns off guard.

Judge credited Cleveland’s defense for not falling for the trick.

“Look, they did a good job,” Judge said. “They obviously fell off and made the coverage … There was a little confusion at first, but they settled on down. We thought we had a chance at it. It was worth rolling the dice right there and playing to our defense. They made a play, we didn’t. That’s all right. I thought the scheme was sound going in and if we have something else, we’ll always look to use it in the right opportunity.”

Quarterback Colt McCoy — who started for an injured Daniel Jones — admitted after the game that he didn’t know that the Giants were about to run a trick play on that fourth down play. He didn’t analyze that moment for the media, but did admit that the offense shouldn’t have forced Judge’s hand to call that play to begin with.

“I didn’t know it was coming, to be honest,” McCoy said, “You know, I take responsibility because we should’ve punched it in on third down. We had lots of trips down there in the red zone and it was frustrating to only come out with three points in the first half. That was sort of my frustration.”

The Giants were overall more aggressive with Freddie Kitchens filling in at offensive coordinator for Jason Garrett, twice going for it on fourth down in the first half rather than kick a field goal.

The second fourth down try failed, too, when Wayne Gallman was stuffed on a 1-yard run at the Browns’ six-yard line.

“Field goals weren’t going to win this game,” Judge said. “I’m not afraid to call things aggressively. I’m not afraid if I think we have a good scheme in the kicking game to call a fake. I’m not afraid to run the ball on fourth-and-one. We’ll play to our defense at times …

“We’re going to call this game aggressively and we’re going to play it aggressively. When you make calls like that, you let your players understand that you have confidence in them and that they can play the game aggressively. We have confidence in our players.”

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Zack Rosenblatt may be reached at zrosenblatt@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.

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